Visa has begun trials of an iPhone-based mobile payment system in Europe, Computerworld reports. The trials, which started today, require on-device software to be installed on testers’ iPhones, as well as a hardware accessory that contains an NFC chip. Visa’s solution also requires retailers to install a hardware terminal capable of processing the mobile payments. Apple is expected to add native NFC capabilities to its next-generation iPhone, which means users would not have to attach any additional device to their phones in order to pay for goods and services. Apple has not yet confirmed the addition of NFC to its next-generation smartphone, however, so it is unclear if the company plans to restrict third-party access to NFC capabilities. In that event, third-party solutions like the one Visa is currently trialling would still require a hardware accessory to function. A survey conducted by Visa in Europe found that 87% of iPhone users would be willing to connect a hardware accessory to their phones in order to enable mobile payments.
Graphical front-end for the PVRUniSCo shader compiler allowing easy creation and editing of OpenGL ES 2.0 shading language vertex and fragment shader programs in addition to POWERVR FX (PFX) files.
PVRShaman is an integrated shader development environment allowing rapid-prototyping of new vertex and fragment shader programs. PVRShaman brings together geometry exported using PVRGeoPOD (or converted using Collada2POD), textures compressed using PVRTexTool and on-the-fly editing of Shader programs with editing functionality on the same level as the PVRUniSCo Editor. Projects are saved as POWERVR FX files allowing easy integration with your code base.
For the longest time I have been optimising my own OpenGL ES shaders using my knowledge of the underlying hardware and things that may stall or slow down the pipeline. It is not very clear on Imagination Technologies’ site that these tools are now available as OS X utilities that run in X11. All you need to do is download the folder of the app, rather than the .exe, and then “chmod +x” the relevant file for your OS (Linux or OS X).
PVRUniSCo is particularly useful as it gives you estimated instruction / cycle counts for shaders. Some estimates for shaders I have long thought were fairly optimal surprised me, and showed me where I had perhaps missed a trick or two.
Recommended development resources, if you haven’t already found them and had a play.
The sample code is available on the following platforms:
Windows (Microsoft Visual Studio) using the AMD OpenGL ES 2.0 Emulator or PowerVR Khronos OpenGL ES 2.0 SDK
iPhone
WebGL (requires WebGL-enabled browser)
Android 2.2
Please see the Instructions wiki page for more information on how to install and build the sample code.
I certainly found this book a handy reference when transitioning from desktop OpenGL to OpenGL ES. So I am sure the code samples will be of great help to those in a similar situation.
Epic Games will tomorrow release a new version of its Unreal Development Kit, now with support for iPhone and iPad versions of the engine.
This follows the well-received launch of Infinity Blade, the first Unreal-powered title for iOS, and which turned over at least $1.6 million in its first five days on sale.
The kit remains free to download, while Epic requires no payment for any UDK games released for free, regardless of platform.
Developers wishing to charge for their Unreal-powered iOS Apps will be required to first buy a $99 license and to provide 25 per cent of all royalties once passing $5000 in sales.
It’s a great deal. And a great engine. Available here tomorrow.
Couple that with the App Store as a sales channel and you should be all set…
“Apple didn’t have an in-house game designer before me so I think it was pretty unique,” Devine told Kotaku. “Game technologies touch everything from the graphics stack to touch latency to push notifications. No other app type covers so many technologies and having someone there to validate and help shape that was basically my day job. It was pretty kick ass.”
Overall I think Devine certainly made his mark on iOS. A lot of the graphic stack is certainly better put together (now) than anything on OS X – in terms of respective modern gaming support on the two quite different hardware platforms. It would be nice to think that he had some input there. I wonder how many frustrations he faced also with some obviously bad decisions at times.
“I don’t think a lot of people are really thinking yet what games mean on these touch platforms, the joystick is gone, there is no proxy in between you and the screen anymore,” he said. “I am not a fan of virtual d-pads, pointers, or other crutches, we have an opportunity on these devices to let players hold, move, touch, and feel the game in front of them and I intend to focus on that.”
Devine certainly gets the unique problems, and the unique opportunities of iOS hardware for gaming.
Despite his departure, Devine insisted that Apple’s commitment to iOS gaming wasn’t diminished. “I can’t comment on what’s next inside Apple, but I can tell you, they really do ‘get’ gaming,” he said.
Good to know. Let’s hope they don’t fall back into bad habits without his input.
Some real gems in here that anyone in the process of bringing games with more complexity than the likes of Angry Birds to any mobile platform should consider carefully…
Carmack says there is a sizable market of gamers who would like that FPS experience, and “want their iPhone to replace the PSP and the DS as a serious gaming machine. But they do not dominate the market.”
[But those kinds of games are not ] “as large of a success as Angry Birds.”
The market is there. But you need to produce something to the kind of quality that a significant, but specialised niche demographic will inevitably want from their entertainment.
We’re number 1 with the HD version, and the SD version is down like in the 30s or something,” said Carmack. “This is going to influence our thinking going forward — if it’s that big of a difference, we probably won’t offer the low-end, standard def version.”
Again, those with an interest in a high profile product like Rage on iOS, expect the best quality version possible. And it to be as immersive as possible.
That last point is partly why there is a bit of a backalsh in the more hardcore iOS gaming community about Rage simply being an on-rails shooter. Rage looks great, and plays great, but in the end I might as well be playing any aim and fire iPhone shooting gallery game.
My favorite part of the interview was at the beginning where Carmack echoed my own feelings about iOS development.
“Being able to work on a more constrained project now and then is rewarding in a lot of ways, and of the available small platforms, I think that the iOS platform is clearly the best.”
We are aware that a number of our fans have had trouble running the game on their devices. For example, some older and lower performance Android devices are experiencing severe performance issues.
We are preparing a new solution for the next update, but for the time being, the Android devices listed below are not officially supported by Angry Birds:
Droid Eris
HTC Dream
HTC Hero
HTC Magic/G2/Sapphire/Mytouch 3G
HTC Tattoo
HTC Wildfire
Huawei Ideos/U8150
LG Ally/Aloha/VS740
LG GW620/Eve
Motorola Backflip/MB300
Motorola Cliq/Dext
Samsung Acclaim
Samsung Moment/M900
Samsung Spica/i5700
Samsung Transform
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini
T-Mobile G1
Furthermore, devices running Android platform version below 1.6 or custom ROMs are not officially supported.
What a mess. I’ve looked at the Android ecosystem several times. And each time I did, despite being offered good money and incentives to put software on that platform, I decided that the chances of dealing with all the various flavours of hardware in an elegant way was minimal. So I declined.
To be totally open handed about this, even with just iOS, iPhone OS and the various flavours of hardware in Apple’s mobile eco-system right now, it is a non-trivial task for small developers to support all the possible permutations of hardware and OS.
Android is suffering from the same problem that Microsoft has always had with Windows and the myriad flavours of PC hardware they must support.
Jean-Louis Gassée argues both for and against iOS becoming the ultimate Apple OS…
Over time, iOS version 7 or 10 will become the operating system that runs inside most Apple computing devices. As shown in the recent preview of the next OS X version, “Lion” will borrow iPad UI features such as full-screen apps hiding the windowing system, and a launchpad for Mac apps that resembles the iPad home screen. And, any day now, the iPad will get folders, not a visible file system, but a way to group apps, like today’s iPhone.
Couldn’t agree more. Apple’s current unification of iPhone OS and iOS could even be seen as a very very early study in how future unifications will go.
Ultimately, whichever way the marge goes down, we will end up with one OS. This is so obvious to me that I am surprised when people feel the need to call it speculation.
Both “Monday Notes” from Gassée are well worth the time taken to read them.
